Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/373

Rh of science in all its departments, but especially of natural history. The example of his father, and the splendid botanical garden in the midst of which he lived from infancy, early imbued him with an intense love of Nature, and cultivated in him the habit of scientific observation. The unrestrained freedom of his boyhood life, in a country where game of all kinds abounded, engendered a passionate fondness for field-sports; and this again increased both his love of Nature and the opportunities of observation. In later life this love of field and forest took the more rational form of extensive ramblings for scientific purposes.

After graduating A. B. in the University of Georgia, in 1841, he commenced the study of medicine, and graduated M. D. in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, in 1845. A few years of active practice of his profession in Macon, Georgia (during which, however, he was more interested in the science of medicine than in the art of healing), served to convince him that he had not yet found his appropriate field of activity. He therefore, in 1850, went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to pursue a course of practical science in the laboratory of Prof. Agassiz.

His life in Cambridge, and especially his intimate association with the great teacher, powerfully stimulated his enthusiasm for science, and permanently determined its direction. During the winter of 1851, in company with Prof. Agassiz, he spent the months of January and February on the keys and reefs of Florida, engaged in studying their mode of formation. These studies afterward gave origin to a paper "On the Agency of the Gulf Stream in the Formation of the Peninsula and Keys of Florida."

In 1851, after taking the degree of B. S. in the Lawrence Scientific School, he returned to Georgia, and was immediately elected to the chair of Natural Science in Oglethorpe University. As this chair included physics, chemistry, geology, and natural history, he was not unwilling to exchange it for that of geology and natural history in the University of Georgia, which was tendered him in 1852. Four years of laborious class-room work here laid the foundation of his success as a teacher and lecturer, but left little time for research. In 1856 he removed to Columbia, South Carolina, to take charge of the chair of Chemistry and Geology in the South Carolina College.

The years spent in connection with this institution were among the pleasantest and most active of his life. The highly-intellectual and refined society gathered in Columbia was, however, more literary and philosophical than scientific. His activity, therefore, took in some degree this direction, and most of his articles which are not strictly scientific were written at this time.

In 1862 the call of the Confederate Government for all able-bodied males over eighteen years of age entirely broke up the college for want of students. During the war he was engaged first as Chemist